NRC infighting goes nuclear

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko regularly faces the sharp end of Republican spears for his work to shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, but his biggest clash appears not to be with Capitol Hill but with fellow NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki.

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Jaczko, a Democrat and former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Svinicki, a Republican, have sparred over everything from serious issues including safety reviews and agency budgets to minor items like foreign travel requests.

The tension between Jaczko and Svinicki is so thick that the two haven’t addressed one another in months, sources tell POLITICO.

“There’s been a history of punches and counterpunches,” David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’s Nuclear Safety Project and a longtime observer of the NRC, said of Jaczko and Svinicki. “I don’t know who started it but at some point it doesn’t matter. It takes two to fight.”

The conflict plays out in various, often petty, ways. For example, Jaczko has developed a system of approval for commissioners requesting foreign travel. The system had simple rules, including one that required only Svinicki to produce a written justification for such requests.

An NRC inspector general report earlier this year noted that Jaczko “used foreign travel as an incentive for supporting him on issues.”

According to the report, Jaczko told investigators that “it was his responsibility to decide who best represented the agency and if he had colleagues who did not support him on votes, he was not likely to send them to represent him and the agency on international travel.”

The IG report also referenced several accounts from current and former NRC staff members who said Jaczko’s aggressive behavior created “an intimidating work environment,” in part because he often yelled at his colleagues on the commission.

Dale Klein, a former NRC chairman, said he believed the report presented a tamer version of accounts than what was collected by investigators.

Klein described Jaczko’s behavior as “ruling by intimidation” and by cornering his colleagues on agency issues through the media. When it came to Jaczko’s interactions with Svinicki, he said, “While I was there, he would oftentimes yell at her.”

Before retiring from the NRC, Klein said he gave Jaczko a warning. "I had told him early on, several times, that the title is chairman — not dictator," Klein said.

The latest skirmish came last month after Jaczko went to the National Press Club to announce his plan to have the NRC review recommendations of a special Fukushima task force in 90 days. One problem: The chairman went forward with the proposal without convincing his fellow commissioners to support it, and his announcement was widely seen as a maneuver aimed at painting his colleagues into a corner. (Jaczko told the other commissioners about his plan, but there was little to no negotiation.)

Three commissioners — Svinicki, William Magwood and William Ostendorff — quickly moved to block the 90-day timetable.

For his part, Jaczko struck back last week, writing a memo saying his colleagues have a "preoccupation with process at the expense of nuclear safety policy."

Jaczko’s 90-day proposal was “the classic example of what not to do,” Klein said. “What’s magic about 90 days?

"That’s not the way that you’re going to build a consensus. In fact, it builds mistrust and hidden agendas,” he added. “If your objective is to get things accomplished, there are certain skills and tactics you use and there are certainly things that you don’t use.”

At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing earlier this month, Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) spent an extended round of questioning dissecting the language of Svinicki’s vote on the task force report, which Boxer described as “very disturbing.” She also pushed Svinicki to endorse specific safety recommendations.